Dominoes
by ADashOfInsanity
Summary: When Geoffrey returns home from his knight's training, Lucia and Elincia plan a camp out in the garden of the Royal Villa to celebrate his return. Though Geoffrey may not wish to share in their fun, the two girls turn a simple game of dominoes into a fantasy adventure to keep them amused all evening. Pre-FE9 Childhood Story.


**Dominoes**

Why such a small undertaking warranted such a large amount of attention was anyone's guess. Of course the deciding factor could have been the natures of the three children embarking on their night's fun in the villa garden, however such a safe location didn't warrant extra guarding. Besides, they had a rather adamantly patrolling twelve year old for that. Despite the calls from his older sister and his young friend, he was determined to remain their watchman. He was going to defeat anyone that disturbed their camp...if only armed with a curtain pole and protected by a stolen leather jerkin, worn over his pyjamas, which was far too big for him.

"Geoffrey sit down!" exclaimed his sister in exasperation. She was sitting outside of the larger of the two striped tents that had been set up in the corner of the extensive garden. She sat alongside the young princess of Crimea, who was also watching her patrolling companion with a definitely sulky look on her face.

"Why's Geoffrey being so silly?" she demanded of her sister-figure, "Why can't he have fun with us?"

"Because the knights at the castle have warped his brain," Lucia explained with a wise nod. She reached for another log from the pile and put it on the campfire as Elincia watched the flames climb, the dancing light reflected in her wide chestnut eyes.

"But…but Lucy, we were meant to be celebrating the fact Geoffrey came home from training!" the nine year old protested, "That's why we have tents and a fire and food! We were supposed to have fun all three of us like before he went away! But now Geoffrey…he's being so silly."

"It's alright," Lucia assured her, shifting so they sat closer together, "We can have fun together just the two of us. We don't need silly boys to have fun…" She glanced about at their surroundings, as if looking for a worthy distraction. They had already done a lot of cooking on the campfire. Mindful of the princess' fingers, Lucia had taught her how to make pastry twists on sticks over the campfire. They had toasted bread and eaten it with honey for their tea that evening and they had even brought with them a tin of toffees which they had eaten them with biscuits despite the fact the sweets had slightly melted due to their close proximity to the fire.

"Why don't we play dominoes?" Lucia asked, reaching into the tent a pulling out a long lacquered box shaped like a castle complete with four little turrets.

This was a domino set truly fit for a princess. It had been given to the royal family by the Countess of Fayre, the well-spoken mother of one of their more…enthusiastic… friends. (Who had not been invited to their quiet campsite.) The dominoes were a priceless heirloom, and would no doubt be passed through generations of Crimean princesses to come. They were still sturdy enough to be playable though, despite their fineness. On one side of each piece lay of course the numbers of dots needed for play. They had been carved into the woods and then painted with gold, possibly coated with gold leaf, so that they glittered continuously, providing quite the distraction amid play. However it was the back of the dominoes that truly kept their value. On the back of each domino was a painted figure or two so that when placed beside each other in one long line a whole fairytale scenario could be seen. There were dragons and witches, knights and princess, unicorns and magical castles with fabulous treasures glinting inside. There were three headed hydras and beautiful rainbows, evil sorcerers and dancing jesters. The backs of the dominoes were so beautiful that playing the game itself looked simply boring in comparison. Why would you want to look at dots instead?

That's why Elincia had made up her own version of the game. She didn't get to play with the dominoes very often however when she did, she would only let Lucia touch them, and only when they were playing her special game. Of course she was always worried about playing with them. If she broke or even chipped one, she would get in a lot of trouble, however Lucia clearly trusted her with them, and now they sat a little way away from the fire to play Elincia's special game.

"You go first Lucy!" Elincia said excitedly as Lucia tipped all the dominoes into a pile onto a special velvet cloth, careful that the heirlooms didn't get dirty. Lucia picked a domino at random and turned it over. On the back was a picture of a princess.

"There once was a beautiful princess," she began, putting the picture of the princess on the cloth, "The most beautiful princess in all the land. She lived a life of joy and happiness with her friends and family in a lovely palace by the sea where she would…sit on the beach and watch the dolphins play."

Elincia took a domino. This one showed the image of a unicorn, it resembled a Pegasus but without wings and a horn had been added to it, as well as a lot of glittering sparkles.

"The princess was friends with a wonderful magical unicorn called… Snowy!" Elincia continued eagerly, "They were best of friends and the princess would travel about the country with the unicorn as her steed. They were very happy together and did lots of travelling!"

Lucia's next domino had a large scarlet dragon on it.

"However the princess' and the unicorn's happiness was not to last very long." She replied, "For a dragon, controlled by an evil tyrant, flew into her happy land and destroyed her sea-side palace. She had to run away for the dragon had been sent to ruin her and make her life a misery. She escaped on the back of her faithful unicorn and rode away into the sunset away from the dragon."

It was Elincia's turn once more. Her next tile showed an handsome axe-wielding warrior, who was fighting a skeleton in armour.

"As the princess ran away she met a big manly warrior!" Elincia exclaimed in excitement, "There were undead skeletons and monsters and things that attacked the princess because the dragon told them to, and the warrior came in and saved her. They became really good friends and the warrior agreed to travel with her to stop the evil tyrant that had sent the dragon."

The story continued in this way for some time. The two girls embellished the story as much as they could with as many beautiful unicorns and terrible dragons as the dominoes would allow. Lucia found that her princess' mind worked in the same way as it always did whilst playing the game. It seemed rather inevitable that the hero and the princess were going to get married and ride off on unicorns together (that's how every game seemed to end if Elincia finished it). All the evil figures were probably going to be slain and the dragons would die as both the princess and hero attacked it. However she was surprised halfway through the domino set when Elincia picked a tile with the image of a pair of knights attacking a witch.

"The princess and the hero and their army travelled into a town where they found two the princess' knights called…Oswald and…and…Keith… and they were fighting a witch! The princess thought the witch should be destroyed but the warrior-hero stepped in and said the witch was his friend and they couldn't kill her!"

"What a wonderful plot twist!" Lucia praised. That certainly hadn't happened before.

"So the witch joined their army," Elincia continued, clearly eager to embellish her fantastic new idea, "But she really did not like the princess at all. The princess was beautiful and had a wonderful magical unicorn and the witch did not have a wonderful magical unicorn and was not pretty like the princess because she had eyes…that glowed! And she was quite little! The witch was in love with the hero-warrior and she believed that the warrior-hero would love the princess and never love her because the princess was a princess and she wasn't."

"An even better plot-twist!" Lucia encouraged, "Shall I see what happens next?" Elincia nodded eagerly as Lucia chose her next tile.

Two dominoes later the story had a second princess who apparently was the first princess' best friend in the whole entire world, according to Elincia. Together they, the hero, and the lovelorn witch travelled all the way round the world, visiting lots of wizards and castles and defeating lots of smaller dragons. As the end of the story drew near everyone seemed to be riding on unicorns, except the hero because he was too heavy, and the witch, simply because she couldn't have one. The last domino was Elincia's; it had the suitable image of a pretty palace with a large rainbow stretching through the sky behind it. There was also a unicorn in front of the palace.

"And after defeating the horrible tyrant and his dragon, everyone went home to the lovely land by the sea," Elincia informed Lucia, "The princess became the Queen of the country and the hero became a knight of the realm. The Princess ruled the country very well and didn't need advisors or anything because she was kind and good and because advisors are silly and lock princesses away in villas and she didn't want that. The princess lived happily ever after and held a big party and got married to…to the other princess!"

Lucia blinked. She hadn't expected that.

"And what about the hero?" she asked. Usually she'd hear long details about the hero and princess' wedding at this point in the game however Elincia seemed to have other plans.

"Well the princess knew the other princess for absolutely AGES," Elincia explained, "And she'd only known the hero since they started fighting the dragon. Besides, he smelled really weird. Boys are weird."

"They are," Lucia agreed, glancing in her brother's direction. Geoffrey had adopted a bowl as a helmet now…oh dear.

"The hero…" Elincia mused, "He got married too though! He decided he did not want to be a knight and eloped with the witch, who he thought was beautiful even if no one else in the entire world did! They ran away together, riding away on unicorns into the sunset! And everyone lived happily ever after!"

"Wonderful," yawned Lucia as they admired their domino story before packing the whole set away.

"Are you sleepy Lucy?" asked Elincia, looking at the domino princesses and dragons as they went back in their castle box.

"A little, but don't worry about it, we can have more fun," Lucia replied, yawning again.

"If you want to sleep, we all sleep!" Elincia said authoritatively, getting to her feet, "Geoffrey, we are all going to sleep now!"

"I'm sorry your highness," came Geoffrey's reply from the behind the tents, "But guarding you and my honourable sister does not allow a noble knight of Crimea any rest!"

"You're a squire not a knight," said Lucia, also getting to her feet, "You have to go to bed. Besides, I am older than you so I can tell you what to do! So you have to go to bed, so there!"

"You're only a year older," Geoffrey said sulkily. However it seemed the girls had won for he came closer to the campfire and laid his bowl, leather and curtain pole down and retreated into the smaller tent where they saw his silhouette rummage for blankets.

"Shall we go to sleep now?" Elincia asked Lucia, who had fetched the bucket of water, left for putting out the fire.

"Sure," she replied, dousing the flames before opening the tent-flap for her princess to clamber inside. Once they were surrounded by the rather plush interior Elincia began to sort out the pillows and blankets so they had an equal share of bedding. As Lucia fastened the tent flap however she found a pair of silk clad arms hugging her tightly round the mid-riff. She turned just as Elincia let go.

"Good night hug," Elincia explained, smiling sweetly. Lucia laughed and hugged her back.

"Good night to you too. Come on let's go to sleep. We've got sword practice tomorrow."

Elincia nodded and two the settled into the blankets. After much whispering, and a little giggling over the disgruntled noises coming from the tent next door, they finally dozed off together.


End file.
